Should you bother with the new iPhone 3G S?

The new iPhone 3G S goes on sale today, and by 8am about 50 people had gathered outside Apple's store on Regent Street in Central London. A relatively small turn-out by Apple launch standards, and the press and security presence seemed out of proportion to the number of queueing customers.

There will always be people who have to have the very latest hardware, even if there's not quite so many of them this time, but is it worth it for the rest of us? Especially as we can already upgrade all our iPhones and iPod Touches to a new operating system which brings almost all of the new toys to the gadgets we already own.

The only real hardware differences are a better, three-megapixel camera that shoots video, a compass and a faster processor. That’s about it. And while applications may open a little faster, that chip won’t be making much difference to games: developers won’t be writing code specifically for the 3G S chip, at least not until there are more 3G S phones in the world than 1G and 3G iPhones and all iPod Touches put together. So the biggest advantage is somewhat useless, at least right now.

Compass? We can do without it. Sure, it will make the maps function way easier to use in a strange city, but for that I could always buy a real, physical magnetic-needle compass for a few quid. And the camera? Tell me there’s an iPhone owner out there without a camera of at least three megapixels somewhere in the house. One that will shoot video and likely give a much better picture from its dedicated hardware than a hybrid phone/MP3 player/camera ever could. You could even buy a decent DSLR camera for much less than the price of a new iPhone.

Of course, we know the real answer (although that last point about the camera is actually pretty compelling). It’s all about the software. Sure, it’s handy having all your gadgets in one package, but other phones do that, too. The trick with the iPhone is that all these parts jigsaw together seamlessly. For instance, what other device has a video camera, built-in (and usable, by the looks of it) editing software, and an internet connection to send it off to YouTube? (And before you argue that point, make sure that the editing software, if any, doesn’t make you mad enough to throw the phone out the window).

And that’s the real reason so many people will pay the upgrade tax. Not just because of the hardware, but because clever developers will come up with all sorts of new and fun ways to make all that hardware play together. What about, for example, an app that talks to the compass, knows exactly which way you are pointing the camera, and turns videos into 3D worlds you can later explore?